Nigel Teles­ford

Dance­hall artiste Tim­oy “Tee­jay” Jones is us­ing his plat­form to push a mes­sage be­yond mu­sic, call­ing for uni­ty with­in Trinidad’s ex­plo­sive Trini­bad scene while deep­en­ing his con­nec­tion to the wider Caribbean.

Speak­ing with Over­time Me­dia ahead of his up­com­ing al­bum No Dis­trac­tion, the Mon­tego Bay-born artiste, wide­ly known as the ‘Up­Top Boss’, said he would like to see lead­ing Trini­bad fig­ures come to­geth­er.

“Right now, hon­est­ly, me woul­da like to do a song with Kman 6ixx?,” he said “and me woul­da like to do a song with Medz Boss same time.”

Rather than lean­ing in­to ri­val­ry, Tee­jay framed the idea as a call for progress.

“More peo­ple say uni­ty right now, love, joy, love life. Let’s live,” he added. “Make we work to­geth­er. Make we do this for the fu­ture, for the youths.”

Tee­jay said he was in­ten­tion­al­ly putting the mes­sage out pub­licly so the artistes them­selves could see the op­por­tu­ni­ty.

A clip from the in­ter­view has since sparked ma­jor con­ver­sa­tion on­line, amass­ing more than 209,000 views, over 550 com­ments and more than 1,900 shares. Many view­ers praised Tee­jay for mak­ing the sug­ges­tion, with sev­er­al call­ing for an end to the feud be­tween the Trini­bad acts and en­cour­ag­ing the artistes to con­sid­er the big­ger pic­ture.

Tee­jay al­so made it clear that his con­nec­tion to Trinidad runs deep­er than per­for­mance alone. He cred­it­ed the coun­try, along with the wider Caribbean, as a ma­jor force be­hind the glob­al reach of dance­hall.

“With­out Ja­maica, Trinidad, Guyana, The Ba­hamas and St Vin­cent,” he said, high­light­ing the ter­ri­to­ries that con­tin­ue to push the cul­ture for­ward. “With­out these places and the Caribbean, our mu­sic wouldn’t even reach fur­ther in the wider world so I must show big re­spect to all the dance­hall mu­sic fans in the re­gion first.”

Jones not­ed that songs like Air­plane Mode have been per­form­ing strong­ly in Trinidad and across the re­gion, in some cas­es even bet­ter than in Ja­maica.

In a light but telling mo­ment, Tee­jay said he some­times leans in­to that con­nec­tion when speak­ing abroad.

“Most times… when peo­ple ask me where I’m from, I say I’m Trinida­di­an,” he said jok­ing­ly, try­ing our ac­cent. “I is Tri­ni boy. I does re­al­ly tell peo­ple dem ting some­times.”

On the so­ca side, Tee­jay ex­pressed ad­mi­ra­tion for artistes in­clud­ing Nailah Black­man, Skin­ny Fab­u­lous and Yung Bred­da, not­ing that he is “100 per cent will­ing to sup­port so­ca mu­sic any­time.”

He al­so spoke pos­i­tive­ly about the So­Da con­cept—a fu­sion of so­ca and dance­hall—and de­scribed the gen­res as nat­u­ral­ly aligned.

“So­ca and dance­hall, we are neigh­bours any­way,” he said. “It’s just the right thing to have these two gen­res fused to­geth­er and cre­ate his­to­ry.”

Be­yond the re­gion­al con­ver­sa­tion, Tee­jay is en­ter­ing a new phase of his ca­reer with a sharp­ened fo­cus on in­de­pen­dence and own­er­ship. His up­com­ing al­bum No Dis­trac­tion, which he said is “ap­prox­i­mate­ly 87 per cent com­plete”, rep­re­sents a re­turn to his core sound.

“We talk­ing about the 2016 Tee­jay,” he said, de­scrib­ing the en­er­gy as “hus­tle mode” and look­ing for­ward to col­lab­o­ra­tions with the afore­men­tioned Tri­ni artistes for the project.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Tee­jay re­vealed that the No Dis­trac­tion project is be­ing de­vel­oped in­de­pen­dent­ly, a move that car­ries sig­nif­i­cant mean­ing for the artiste.

While no longer signed to Warn­er Records, he con­firmed he re­mains aligned with Warn­er Chap­pell on the pub­lish­ing side.

“Tee­jay is an in­de­pen­dent artiste now,” he said, adding that No Dis­trac­tion means “every­thing” be­cause of that cre­ative free­dom.

He al­so em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of un­der­stand­ing the busi­ness be­hind the mu­sic, par­tic­u­lar­ly own­er­ship.

“That’s the first thing I learn in mu­sic,” he said, ref­er­enc­ing the im­por­tance of own­ing mas­ters, hav­ing prop­er le­gal guid­ance and se­cur­ing fair agree­ments.

His lat­est sin­gle, Per­fect Body, is be­ing po­si­tioned as a sum­mer-ready re­lease, but Tee­jay said the track al­so car­ries a deep­er mes­sage aimed at em­pow­er­ing women.

“A lot of fe­males out there feel in­se­cure of them­selves, so I just want them to know that they’re spe­cial,” he said.

“Don’t wor­ry your­self if some­body say that you’re not beau­ti­ful. You’re beau­ti­ful to me.”

Tee­jay al­so con­firmed that Up­Top Fest, his brand­ed event se­ries, is set to launch in the Unit­ed King­dom be­fore head­ing to Ja­maica on De­cem­ber 27. He said the con­cept is ex­pect­ed to ex­pand in­to ter­ri­to­ries that have con­sis­tent­ly sup­port­ed his mu­sic, in­clud­ing Trinidad and the wider Caribbean.

With No Dis­trac­tion, Up­Top Fest and a grow­ing re­gion­al con­ver­sa­tion all in mo­tion, Tee­jay ap­pears fo­cused on more than just an­oth­er hit. Asked to de­scribe the mind­set be­hind the project, he kept it sim­ple:

“Team Fo­cus,” he said. “No neg­a­tiv­i­ty. No dis­trac­tions. I’m just stay­ing fo­cused on progress, yuh get me?”